tony41454:The ONLY facts you need to check is--is the deficit over $16 trillion now when it was a little over $1 trillion when Bush was in office? Then, yes, the Obama administration has a SPENDING problem.

I mean aside from the fact that we used to do it and it didn't work out all that well. Maybe we should tie it to bottle caps. Or poop. Makes just as much sense. The poop standard.

Gold fulfills several qualities that very few materials on earth fulfill.

1. It is divisible.2. It is easily transportable.3. It is not easily created.4. It has very few industrial uses.

Very few other elements fulfill those qualities, and of those that do, they are most certainly extremely valuable.

You again fail at facts. Gold does actually have a significant number of industrial uses, but because of the hoarding fetish of irrational people most applications end up looking for an alternative because the price has been driven up too high.

Gold is a bad currency. It isn't readily created. What you think is a plus is actually a very big minus. Gold has a tendancy in a currency to create deflationary cycles, which impedes economic growth.

It is also terrible at being transported. Fiat currency can go to 50 different cities on 6 different continents in under an hour (ie. electronic transfers), gold cannot.

It is also rather hard to divide relative to modern fiat currencies.

Your stupidity appears to be boundless. Too bad it can't be burned as a fuel, since we'd finally achieve cheap energy, since you seem to give away your stupidity so freely.

If spending is out of control, that must mean... OH GOD, THE SQUIRRELS ARE IN CONTROL OF THE MONEY! We must stop the squirrels from trading all our money for unlimited acorns! DO YOU THINK ACORNS GROW ON TREES?!

Ron Paul is not advocating different spending, he is advocating no spending.

Suppose everyone chips in money to attend a meeting. The majority of people at the meeting decide to use some of the money to order Chinese food. One dude says he's not hungry, and goes on a huge rant about how Chinese food makes you fat and unhealthy and is ruining the country. Then he asks for an some sweet and sour chicken, crab rangoon and a shrimp egg roll.

MattStafford:namatad: I love reading about WHAT would actually happen and HOW we would switch over to the gold standard.It is pretty farking INSANE shiat.Inflation would be completely out of control no matter how and when they set the exchange rate.The US going on the gold standard without both the euro and yen doing the same thing, would be the end of the US.

shudderbut go ahead and keep choking that chicken goldies!!

And I'm sure 400% debt to GDP is going to work out real well for us too.

How exactly do you plan on financing a government that has accumulated 16 trillion dollars in debt with a product that has a global total value of 1.6 trillion dollars? If the US was in control of ALL the gold, platinum and silver in the ENTIRE WORLD, we would be able to finance our spending for 10 years.

How exactly do you plan to maintain a GDP of of 15.1 trillion dollars with liquid currency valued at under 1 trillion dollars?

And how exactly do you plan to KEEP that gold inside the united states? Cause everyone else wants it too. For non-monetary reasons.

/Gold standard makes as much sense as a Lumber Standard.//Correction. Lumber standard makes more sense.

MattStafford:CPennypacker: Poop fulfills 1, 2 and 4, and 3 has no bearing over whether or not a currency should be tied to an asset. You dig up gold, you excrete poop. Both have nothing to do with currency.

Being difficult to reproduce is very important in a currency, otherwise it allows you to create credit bubbles like we're currently in. Credit bubbles aren't impossible under a gold standard, but they are generally squashed well before they can become dangerous.

You just trade them for stagnated growth caused by tying you rmonetary supply to how many rocks you can dig out of the ground. Makes much more sense.

Biological Ali:Wow, whatever country you're in must be a terrifying place indeed. I mean, in the US, people are free to emigrate if they find the politics of the country that distasteful. The Americans really should spare a thought for your countrymen and be thankful that they're not in a country where their only options are "Pay a hundred bucks" or "get beaten up".

Ah, the old "if you don't like it, just move" canard. Well, it isn't that easy to just---wait, sorry there, I thought you were a Republican. Carry on.

I mean aside from the fact that we used to do it and it didn't work out all that well. Maybe we should tie it to bottle caps. Or poop. Makes just as much sense. The poop standard.

Gold fulfills several qualities that very few materials on earth fulfill.

1. It is divisible.2. It is easily transportable.3. It is not easily created.4. It has very few industrial uses.

Very few other elements fulfill those qualities, and of those that do, they are most certainly extremely valuable.

There is 20% more proven gold reserves now than 20 years ago.

It's all academic: a currency backed by a commodity constrains growth.

Besides, it's hardly a panacea: # of Depressions in the US on Gold Standard: 1. # of Depressions in the US on Fiat Currency: 0. And during the Great Depression, countries got better in the same order they left the gold standard.

MattStafford:Biological Ali: Wow, whatever country you're in must be a terrifying place indeed. I mean, in the US, people are free to emigrate if they find the politics of the country that distasteful. The Americans really should spare a thought for your countrymen and be thankful that they're not in a country where their only options are "Pay a hundred bucks" or "get beaten up".

Ah, the old "if you don't like it, just move" canard. Well, it isn't that easy to just---wait, sorry there, I thought you were a Republican. Carry on.

It failed to work the last time it was implemented but surely it won't happen again.

I love reading about WHAT would actually happen and HOW we would switch over to the gold standard.It is pretty farking INSANE shiat.Inflation would be completely out of control no matter how and when they set the exchange rate.The US going on the gold standard without both the euro and yen doing the same thing, would be the end of the US.

shudderbut go ahead and keep choking that chicken goldies!!

What? You mean you don't yearn for the days when the economy was more erratic and boom/bust cycles were more frequent?

The boom bust cycles were more frequent, I won't disagree. The nature of a gold standard creates the situation where credit bubbles are quickly stamped out. A credit bubble creates a boom, and then when it collapses, it creates a bust. The problem with fiat, is that these credit bubbles aren't quickly stamped out. They are allowed to build and build, to the point of systemic collapse. And, if you take a look at those graphs I posted a while back, it looks like we've been in the mother of all credit bubbles for about thirty years, and when this baby blows? Economic Yellowstone.

CPennypacker:Wow even worse. What toilet are you fishing these analogies out of?

Lets make you analogy work: Before you ordered, you expressed your deep knowledge of how not only would the chinese food not cure the group's hunger, but it would also give all of you aids. Then when it came you ate a big heaping pile of it. You're not going to starve to death but you're still a farking hypocrite.

Man, your definition of hypocrite blows.

If I claim that we should get Chinese food for a litany of reasons, and say that I wouldn't buy Chinese food with my money, yet due to forces beyond my control, my money is taken and spent on Chinese food, I am not a hypocrite for eating that food.

You are really struggling here if you're going to cling to this hypocritical claim this hard.

Biological Ali:That's not a particularly helpful way of looking at government spending. It's not a discrete transaction (like, say, me paying my rent) where you can say exactly where some specific money allocated by the government for whatever purpose "came from".

I can certainly say what percentage of the population is in Ron Paul's district, and what percentage of total federal revenues come from that district.

/and I'm pretty sure it is less than what they receive from the government, so with regards to that, he might be hypocritical. Luckily none of you guys made that argument.

MattStafford:If I claim that we should not get Chinese food for a litany of reasons, and say that I wouldn't buy Chinese food with my money, yet due to forces beyond my control, my money is taken and spent on Chinese food, I am not a hypocrite for eating that food.

"We all need to stop buying Chinese food because it is destroying the country.""Pass me the egg foo young."

MattStafford:CPennypacker: Wow even worse. What toilet are you fishing these analogies out of?

Lets make you analogy work: Before you ordered, you expressed your deep knowledge of how not only would the chinese food not cure the group's hunger, but it would also give all of you aids. Then when it came you ate a big heaping pile of it. You're not going to starve to death but you're still a farking hypocrite.

Man, your definition of hypocrite blows.

If I claim that we should get Chinese food for a litany of reasons, and say that I wouldn't buy Chinese food with my money, yet due to forces beyond my control, my money is taken and spent on Chinese food, I am not a hypocrite for eating that food.

You are really struggling here if you're going to cling to this hypocritical claim this hard.

It's like splitting the check at dinner, being one of the guys that ordered the steak instead of the chicken, and then complaining about what a bad idea it was to split the check.

MattStafford:Biological Ali: That's not a particularly helpful way of looking at government spending. It's not a discrete transaction (like, say, me paying my rent) where you can say exactly where some specific money allocated by the government for whatever purpose "came from".

I can certainly say what percentage of the population is in Ron Paul's district, and what percentage of total federal revenues come from that district.

/and I'm pretty sure it is less than what they receive from the government, so with regards to that, he might be hypocritical. Luckily none of you guys made that argument.

Why are we arguing about whether Ron Paul is a hypocrite, instead of just continually pointing out that shifting to a fiat currency was a *smart* decision that when coupled with other smart decisions, like preventing over-leveraging and limiting the practice of redrawing on accounts, is the only sensible monetary policy in the modern world?

A while ago you were mostly focused on the merits of the gold standard. I wanna have that conversation. I couldn't care less about RON PAUL if I tried. Is he even a congresscritter anymore?

lennavan:Suppose everyone chips in money to attend a meeting. The majority of people at the meeting decide to use some of the money to order Chinese food. One dude says he's not hungry, and goes on a huge rant about how Chinese food makes you fat and unhealthy and is ruining the country. Then he asks for an some sweet and sour chicken, crab rangoon and a shrimp egg roll.

One dude says that the meeting's dues should not be used to spend on food, and that everyone can use their money to eat prior, as they see fit. Since the food budget is included in the meeting's dues, and that dude can no longer afford to go out and eat on his own, he is forced to eat the Chinese.

The article is wrong. It says that the Republican position is unsatisfiable because there isn't much money to cut without kicking the poor really hard in the balls. The Republicans don't care; they want to kick the poor really hard in the balls. They think it's what the poor deserve, or even that it will help.

MattStafford:CPennypacker: Wow even worse. What toilet are you fishing these analogies out of?

Lets make you analogy work: Before you ordered, you expressed your deep knowledge of how not only would the chinese food not cure the group's hunger, but it would also give all of you aids. Then when it came you ate a big heaping pile of it. You're not going to starve to death but you're still a farking hypocrite.

Man, your definition of hypocrite blows.

If I claim that we should get Chinese food for a litany of reasons, and say that I wouldn't buy Chinese food with my money, yet due to forces beyond my control, my money is taken and spent on Chinese food, I am not a hypocrite for eating that food.

You are really struggling here if you're going to cling to this hypocritical claim this hard.

You're the one that's struggling. You analogy is crap on a stick, but if we're sticking to it, the person against ordering the chinese (the "ron paul or crappy analogies") isn't saying "I wouldn't buy Chinese with my money." He's saying that Chinese is awful, its horrible for everyone, it tastes bad and it actually makes you hungrier. And if we're keeping to the analogy, then really, everyone didn't throw in for dinner, everyone paid their monthly club dues, and this month, they are using some of the club dues to buy a bonus dinner for the members. So you can either eat the bonus dinner, which is chinese which you vocally hate and are sure will give you all cancer, and not be hungry, which makes you a hypocrite, or you can refuse to eat it which lets you keep your integrity but you have to eat cardboard because you are oh-so-hungry. Pick one.

But keep shoveling. Maybe by the time you're done we'll have enough for my Poop Standard.

MattStafford:/and I'm pretty sure it is less than what they receive from the government, so with regards to that, he might be hypocritical. Luckily none of you guys made that argument.

Well if you totally imagine it to be true, that's good enough for me.

Reminds me, one of my favorite looks I have ever gotten from someone was right after I explained to a Ron Paul supporter that Ron Paul thinks if you cannot afford life saving medical care and are uninsured, you made a poor choice should die. The look of shock on his face, his entire political world was just flipped upside down. Then he refused to believe it, it was truly magnificent.

MattStafford:I can certainly say what percentage of the population is in Ron Paul's district, and what percentage of total federal revenues come from that district.

Like I said, it's not like some guy paying his rent. Government spending and government revenues are two different things which aren't related in the manner you're implying. This is especially true for stimulus spending, which will be carried out regardless of whether or not corresponding revenue has been raised separately.

BeesNuts:How exactly do you plan on financing a government that has accumulated 16 trillion dollars in debt with a product that has a global total value of 1.6 trillion dollars? If the US was in control of ALL the gold, platinum and silver in the ENTIRE WORLD, we would be able to finance our spending for 10 years.

How exactly do you plan to maintain a GDP of of 15.1 trillion dollars with liquid currency valued at under 1 trillion dollars?

And how exactly do you plan to KEEP that gold inside the united states? Cause everyone else wants it too. For non-monetary reasons.

/Gold standard makes as much sense as a Lumber Standard.//Correction. Lumber standard makes more sense.

Um, obviously the value of gold would appreciate massively relative to the dollar over night.

And if gold leaves the country, say through a trade deficit with another country, we would be out of luck. That is called living within your means. Oh, I'm sorry, did you think we could run multi billion dollar trade deficits every year indefinitely? Sorry.

What is gold used for industrially? For jewelry, yes, but industrially?

MattStafford:BeesNuts: How exactly do you plan on financing a government that has accumulated 16 trillion dollars in debt with a product that has a global total value of 1.6 trillion dollars? If the US was in control of ALL the gold, platinum and silver in the ENTIRE WORLD, we would be able to finance our spending for 10 years.

How exactly do you plan to maintain a GDP of of 15.1 trillion dollars with liquid currency valued at under 1 trillion dollars?

And how exactly do you plan to KEEP that gold inside the united states? Cause everyone else wants it too. For non-monetary reasons.

/Gold standard makes as much sense as a Lumber Standard.//Correction. Lumber standard makes more sense.

Um, obviously the value of gold would appreciate massively relative to the dollar over night.

And if gold leaves the country, say through a trade deficit with another country, we would be out of luck. That is called living within your means. Oh, I'm sorry, did you think we could run multi billion dollar trade deficits every year indefinitely? Sorry.

What is gold used for industrially? For jewelry, yes, but industrially?

CPennypacker:You just trade them for stagnated growth caused by tying you rmonetary supply to how many rocks you can dig out of the ground. Makes much more sense.

Your growth is stagnated based on your supply of currency. The currency just deflates in value. If there is 1000 pieces of gold and 1000 loaves of bread in society, and someone develops a machine that now produces 10,000 loaves, growth didn't stop or anything like that, gold has just deflated.

MattStafford:One dude says that the meeting's dues should not be used to spend on food, and that everyone can use their money to eat prior, as they see fit. Since the food budget is included in the meeting's dues, and that dude can no longer afford to go out and eat on his own, he is forced to eat the Chinese.

Oh okay then. So now to bring the analogy back, if I gather, the IRS forces Ron Paul and his constituents to pay taxes which are so high, he and his constituents can no longer afford to survive without earmarks and are forced to take them. Okay then, I didn't realize how important those earmarks were. Shiat.

MattStafford:CPennypacker: You just trade them for stagnated growth caused by tying you rmonetary supply to how many rocks you can dig out of the ground. Makes much more sense.

Your growth is stagnated based on your supply of currency. The currency just deflates in value. If there is 1000 pieces of gold and 1000 loaves of bread in society, and someone develops a machine that now produces 10,000 loaves, growth didn't stop or anything like that, gold has just deflated.

Because gold isn't divisible enough to keep that up in perpetuity? Also, if you're going to deflate the shiat out of Gold why bother with a gold standard in the first place?

CPennypacker:You're the one that's struggling. You analogy is crap on a stick, but if we're sticking to it, the person against ordering the chinese (the "ron paul or crappy analogies") isn't saying "I wouldn't buy Chinese with my money." He's saying that Chinese is awful, its horrible for everyone, it tastes bad and it actually makes you hungrier. And if we're keeping to the analogy, then really, everyone didn't throw in for dinner, everyone paid their monthly club dues, and this month, they are using some of the club dues to buy a bonus dinner for the members. So you can either eat the bonus dinner, which is chinese which you vocally hate and are sure will give you all cancer, and not be hungry, which makes you a hypocrite, or you can refuse to eat it which lets you keep your integrity but you have to eat cardboard because you are oh-so-hungry. Pick one.

First, when you say monthly bonus dinner, you mean weekly dinner, right? Because this happens every year.

Second, the argument isn't just that we shouldn't be eating Chinese, the argument is that we shouldn't be using club dues to buy food. Everyone should spend their money how they see fit prior to the meeting. If the club decides to buy food, however, using the dues, then I can no longer afford to buy my own food prior to the meeting and must resort to eating Chinese.

lennavan:Reminds me, one of my favorite looks I have ever gotten from someone was right after I explained to a Ron Paul supporter that Ron Paul thinks if you cannot afford life saving medical care and are uninsured, you made a poor choice should die. The look of shock on his face, his entire political world was just flipped upside down. Then he refused to believe it, it was truly magnificent.

Reminds me of when I said I'm entirely for everyone having access to medical care.

MattStafford:CPennypacker: You're the one that's struggling. You analogy is crap on a stick, but if we're sticking to it, the person against ordering the chinese (the "ron paul or crappy analogies") isn't saying "I wouldn't buy Chinese with my money." He's saying that Chinese is awful, its horrible for everyone, it tastes bad and it actually makes you hungrier. And if we're keeping to the analogy, then really, everyone didn't throw in for dinner, everyone paid their monthly club dues, and this month, they are using some of the club dues to buy a bonus dinner for the members. So you can either eat the bonus dinner, which is chinese which you vocally hate and are sure will give you all cancer, and not be hungry, which makes you a hypocrite, or you can refuse to eat it which lets you keep your integrity but you have to eat cardboard because you are oh-so-hungry. Pick one.

First, when you say monthly bonus dinner, you mean weekly dinner, right? Because this happens every year.

Second, the argument isn't just that we shouldn't be eating Chinese, the argument is that we shouldn't be using club dues to buy food. Everyone should spend their money how they see fit prior to the meeting. If the club decides to buy food, however, using the dues, then I can no longer afford to buy my own food prior to the meeting and must resort to eating Chinese.

OK, I'm done with this analogy now because it's becoming just a little too dumb. Even for me to keep poking at.

MattStafford:BeesNuts: How exactly do you plan on financing a government that has accumulated 16 trillion dollars in debt with a product that has a global total value of 1.6 trillion dollars? If the US was in control of ALL the gold, platinum and silver in the ENTIRE WORLD, we would be able to finance our spending for 10 years.

How exactly do you plan to maintain a GDP of of 15.1 trillion dollars with liquid currency valued at under 1 trillion dollars?

And how exactly do you plan to KEEP that gold inside the united states? Cause everyone else wants it too. For non-monetary reasons.

/Gold standard makes as much sense as a Lumber Standard.//Correction. Lumber standard makes more sense.

Um, obviously the value of gold would appreciate massively relative to the dollar over night.

And if gold leaves the country, say through a trade deficit with another country, we would be out of luck. That is called living within your means. Oh, I'm sorry, did you think we could run multi billion dollar trade deficits every year indefinitely? Sorry.

What is gold used for industrially? For jewelry, yes, but industrially?

PC Boards, cables, connectors and electrical adapters... your standard 747 has about 100 oz of gold in it. Every Computer in the world has maybe 10 bucks worth. Your car.

Gold, and all commodities for that matter, travel to the country or sovereignty that values it the highest. ANY hiccup in our economy would flush all that gold right out the door. Probably to China. It would not require a ruinous practice on our part, merely a temporary depression of gold value relative to its fiat value.

"obviously" the value of a commodity isn't tied to any sort of governmental policy towards that commodity. I'm not sure where you got the idea that it was, but you seem really convinced. Can you elaborate on why gold values would increase if we tied it to our debt/gdp directly?

Biological Ali:Like I said, it's not like some guy paying his rent. Government spending and government revenues are two different things which aren't related in the manner you're implying. This is especially true for stimulus spending, which will be carried out regardless of whether or not corresponding revenue has been raised separately.

I don't think you understand what I'm saying. The population is on the hook for the vast majority of government spending, whether it was funded via taxes or debt. Ron Paul's constituents make up a portion of that population.

MattStafford:Second, the argument isn't just that we shouldn't be eating Chinese, the argument is that we shouldn't be using club dues to buy food. Everyone should spend their money how they see fit prior to the meeting. If the club decides to buy food, however, using the dues, then I can no longer afford to buy my own food prior to the meeting and must resort to eating Chinese.

meh, eating dinner together at the club is part of the being a member of the club thing. They have a great chef and live music. And the cheap bastard who doesnt pay his dues gets kicked.

MattStafford:Your growth is stagnated based on your supply of currency. The currency just deflates in value. If there is 1000 pieces of gold and 1000 loaves of bread in society, and someone develops a machine that now produces 10,000 loaves, growth didn't stop or anything like that, gold has just deflated.

MattStafford:Biological Ali: Like I said, it's not like some guy paying his rent. Government spending and government revenues are two different things which aren't related in the manner you're implying. This is especially true for stimulus spending, which will be carried out regardless of whether or not corresponding revenue has been raised separately.

I don't think you understand what I'm saying. The population is on the hook for the vast majority of government spending, whether it was funded via taxes or debt. Ron Paul's constituents make up a portion of that population.

BeesNuts:A while ago you were mostly focused on the merits of the gold standard. I wanna have that conversation. I couldn't care less about RON PAUL if I tried. Is he even a congresscritter anymore?

It's a horrible concept. The price of gold, due to its rarity, is extremely fluid. What if somebody bought up a bunch of gold? Would we no longer be able to export goods thanks to the strong dollar? The whole point of capitalism is loaning money to people who will produce something with it. How does gold help this?

If we really want to go with a linked currency, go with beer. Make a can of the usual American swill $1. The U.S. can have a "U.S. Strategic Beer Reserve" where it owns giant tanks of beer before it gets canned. The exchange rate would be how much domestic beer costs in the other country, so one Euro would get you 12 oz of Belgian beer, for example.

If the country falls apart and the dollar is worthless, what's gold going to do for you? Nobody's going to want gold. But beer...beer is always valuable.

lennavan:Oh okay then. So now to bring the analogy back, if I gather, the IRS forces Ron Paul and his constituents to pay taxes which are so high, he and his constituents can no longer afford to survive without earmarks and are forced to take them. Okay then, I didn't realize how important those earmarks were. Shiat.

If the meeting's dues were about 20% of the person's budget, it would certainly affect the way he ate. But, it does appear you now agree with me, and your only complaint now is that you think that person is being cheap.

pecosdave:sugardave: I wonder which side of the aisle benefits from this more and has actively worked to fan the flames? I'm sure it's both sides, somehow.

I'm going to disagree. The left seems to find out what the right doesn't like and make a bunch of noise about it and force issues to make the right look bad. The right does it's best to not fan flames and keep a good face while they try to be sneaky about what they do. The left benefits from trumpeting/fanning more - it's solidarity - it's a battle cry to round up like people. The right likes to look like it's being reasonable and responsible to gain the confidence of voters who think they're reasonable and responsible.

No - the left does a lot more flame fanning - it's their strength.

That's pretty good. You got me.8/10simply because you took it to opposite land in such an exquisitely detailed fashion.

CPennypacker:Because gold isn't divisible enough to keep that up in perpetuity? Also, if you're going to deflate the shiat out of Gold why bother with a gold standard in the first place?

Because deflation isn't bad. Take a look at the electronics industry if you want an example. If we produced so much stuff, that you could live the rest of your life on an ounce of gold, there is nothing wrong with that.

CPennypacker:OK, I'm done with this analogy now because it's becoming just a little too dumb. Even for me to keep poking at.

You mean you no longer have an argument against it? That's what I thought. Everyone else gave up there too, and just went for the "hur dur how poor he must be to not be able to afford food" route, which is a lost argument.

MattStafford:I don't think you understand what I'm saying. The population is on the hook for the vast majority of government spending, whether it was funded via taxes or debt. Ron Paul's constituents make up a portion of that population.

Which has nothing to do with what you were talking about. The "revenues" that come from Ron Paul's constituents will have no bearing on size or scope of the stimulus. These are two completely different things. Talking about being "on the hook" for the spending in some grand long-term sense is meaningless because it's not clear what the effect of the spending will be - if the stimulus works, the economy may improve to the point where there's nothing to be "on the hook" for.

You take (and spend) stimulus money because it's the economically sensible thing to do, not because you're somehow "owed" the money in a grand philosophical sense.

MattStafford:. If the club decides to buy food, however, using the dues, then I can no longer afford to buy my own food prior to the meeting and must resort to eating Chinese.

So if I follow, taxes are like the government sticking a gun to your head to steal all of your money to starving like levels. That's why it's okay for Ron Paul to earmark a bill for $2 million to buy new bike racks, while simultaneously bragging that he has never voted for an earmark in his life. Because he was forced to do that earmark, akin to a starving person.

namatad:meh, eating dinner together at the club is part of the being a member of the club thing. They have a great chef and live music. And the cheap bastard who doesnt pay his dues gets kicked.

hmmmmI wonder where this is going.

That isn't the argument that is being made. The argument that is being made is: if someone thought they shouldn't have to pay for the chef and live music, but has to pay for it anyway, is he a hypocrite for subsequently enjoying the chef and live music?

lennavan:MattStafford: . If the club decides to buy food, however, using the dues, then I can no longer afford to buy my own food prior to the meeting and must resort to eating Chinese.

So if I follow, taxes are like the government sticking a gun to your head to steal all of your money to starving like levels. That's why it's okay for Ron Paul to earmark a bill for $2 million to buy new bike racks, while simultaneously bragging that he has never voted for an earmark in his life. Because he was forced to do that earmark, akin to a starving person.

I got it now.

Yes, that is exactly what I said.

Actually, what I said was "If a person doesn't think he should have to pay taxes to fund something, but is forced to pay taxes to fund it anyway, he is not a hypocrite to enjoying whatever it was that he funded".